


bleeding something holy

by ErinNovelist



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Brotherly Love, Canon-Typical Violence, Dick Grayson Is Red Hood But Heavily AU, Family Feels, Gen, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23860639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinNovelist/pseuds/ErinNovelist
Summary: “Don’t you get it yet?” Jason tells Tim in a biting tone. “You can try all you want, but you’ll never wear the mask. I tried for three years. No one can.”Tim clasps his hands into white-knuckled fists at his side, nails digging into the heels of his palms. “Batman needs a Robin.”Jason snorts, shaking his head. “Robin died in a warehouse in Ethiopia. Quit while you’re ahead, kid.”Tim wants to punch him, but he can’t. His mother raised a gentleman even if Bruce is training him to be a constipated asshole.*Or, Dick dies instead of Jason in Ethiopia. In any world, losing a son hurts, and the Wayne family is barely coping.Tim Drake, in any world, always has something to say about it.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd & Tim Drake, Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson
Comments: 41
Kudos: 313





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A couple things!
> 
> Dick Grayson will be alive! Like Jason, he shall rise again! He's supposed to be Red Hood in this 'verse, but there's a LOT of AU to it, and I think it's something you guys might enjoy.
> 
> If you want to talk about this fic or anything in general, feel free to stalk me on tumblr @redriotted or @agrestenoir!

Dick Grayson dies in an abandoned warehouse in blustery Ethiopia, the aftermath of a bomb leaving the world in an ashy fog. Batman finds him pinned against heavy crates, buried under metal bearings and tin roofing. Blood drips onto the snow beneath them, a mosaic of tragedy dark in the silver moonlight.

Batman— _no, he’s only Bruce now_ —screams his voice hoarse for Superman as he bends over his still bleeding, not breathing son. A crazy part of him thinks that there’s still some way to save him, but he knew as soon as he saw the metal staked through his thigh, the glazed blue eyes under the domino mask, the ghost of a relieved smile on his face… It’s over before it even began.

Hope never had a spark to burn with.

Dick Grayson dies in blustery Ethiopia after saving Jason Todd from the hands of the Joker, and a piece of every member of the Wayne family dies with him.

(Dick dies, but this is not the end of his story.)

*

It actually starts like this:

A call comes in one morning as Dick preps for an off-world mission with the Titans, folding his Nightwing suit into a gym bag as he goes through a mental checklist of his supplies. He answers it without looking at who’s calling, assuming it’d be Wally or Roy with a last minute request.

Haly’s the one on the other end. An elephant at the circus is sick, and there’s no telling if she’ll pull through.

Normally, a sick elephant is not a reason to skip a mission as Dick does, handing the reins over to Donna Troy as he rushes across Bludhaven to catch a flight to Virginia where Haley’s Circus is currently stationed. But an elephant named Zitka is _always_ a priority to Dick Grayson—as all family is—and she is surely one of the few remaining members of his old one.

So Dick Grayson stays behind from that off-world mission to help Zitka recuperate. It’s a small thing, but it’s enough to make a difference.

It’s enough to save Jason Todd.

(The same cannot be said about Dick.)

*

Another time ago, three years before, a hesitant Jason fingers a domino mask in his lap, sitting on the bottom of the stairs leading down to the Cave next to Dick, and asks him, “Do you hate me for being Robin?”

Jason doesn’t dare look at his older brother in fear of what he might find. To say the two had a rocky start to their relationship would be an understatement, and he doesn’t want to threaten the shaky peace they’ve built. He still wants to know the truth though.

Dick looks down at the thirteen-year-old who’s only been in their lives for a year, but by now, it seems longer. He can’t fathom why the younger boy would assume he hates him as he’s gone great lengths to try to prove otherwise.

So he asks, plain as day, “What makes you think that?”

Jason snorts, shaking his head. “I know Bruce gave it to me without asking your permission. You guys still fight about it when I go to bed after patrol.”

Dick stills next to him. “I didn’t know you could hear us.”

“Of course I can,” Jason says, rolling his eyes. “That’s when all the good stuff happens. You think I’m gonna miss that?”

There’s a moment of silence as Dick reels in all the things he’s said about Jason and all the things he _needs_ to say to Jason while the younger boy just sits there, ready to take it. Dick can see it in the way he holds himself, the weight on his shoulders and the tension in his jaw. Jason has spent most of his life bracing himself for the punches the universe continually gives him. Dick doesn’t want to be another bruise for the other to hide.

“You weren’t meant to hear those things for a reason,” he tells him, leveling Jason with a stern gaze. “They aren’t about you. It’s Bruce I’m mad at—not you, _never_ you.” He tries to put as much meaning as he can into those words, subtle or not, because their weight and message _matter_.

If the other is surprised by his answer, he doesn’t let it show. Instead, he simply asks, “Are you mad I said yes when Bruce asked though?”

Dick doesn’t mean to, but a laugh slips out into the space between them. Immediately Jason stiffens beside him, cheeks and ears flaring a bright red, and it only serves to make Dick laugh harder. He knows he shouldn’t—he remembers being thirteen and unsure of himself as you enter that gawky pre-teen phase that everyone despises—but Jason has a way of never living up to his expectations in all the best ways.

“Do you even know the story behind Robin?” Dick asks him, a smile stretching across his face.

Jason crinkles his brows in confusion. “There’s a story behind Robin?”

“It was my mother’s nickname for me when I was young,” he explains, pulling out his phone from his back pocket. There’s silence as he flicks through his camera roll, searching for the old poster from the Flying Graysons act that he keeps on his person at all times. “I was born on the first day of spring, so she always called me her ‘little Robin.’ When I first started helping Bruce, our first case was solving my parents’ murder, and I took great pride in the fact that _Robin_ helped his parents find peace.”

He hands the phone to Jason who simply stares at the photograph without a word but still cradles the phone like it’s something precious. It makes Dick’s heart ache something strong. “Is that them?” Jason asks softly.

“Yeah.” His parents’ faces, long faded with age, smile back. “That’s my mom and dad.”

“They look happy.”

“Well, it _is_ advertising,” Dick interjects, and it only makes Jason nudge his side hard with his elbow.

“Shut up, Dickhead,” Jason snipes, but there’s no heat to it. Silence lingers for a few moments as both stare at ghosts of the past who have suddenly never seemed more present.

“When I became Batman’s partner full-time, I decided to keep the name _._ It was my way of honoring my parents’ legacy in any way I could: using their name, wearing their colors, making people’s lives better.” Dick’s expression goes soft, his eyes flickering over to the case across the Cave where his old Robin suit sits.

“I didn’t know that,” Jason whispers.

“That’s okay,” Dick tells him. “I didn’t expect Bruce to tell you. Besides it’s sort of my job anyway.”

His brother finally looks away from the picture, handing the cellphone back to him. “Why _are_ you telling me this though?”

“Because everyone needs a legacy, Jason, and someone to carry it on.” Dick’s voice is quiet, open, vulnerable. It’s a side of him reserved for those who need to hear it, and he’s pretty sure that Jason qualifies right now—brother or not. “Otherwise, there’s no point to it, you know? I did my best to honor my parents, and I still do… every day, even if it’s in a different way now.”

Jason crumples the domino mask between his white-knuckled fists. “And now I ruined it.”

Dick only shakes his head. “No, you didn’t. You never could.” He nudges Jason in the side, careful to avoid the bruises he knows linger there after the rough patrol last night. “You’re _upholding_ it in all the ways I can’t now. Robin is a Grayson legacy, and you’re my little brother. As far as I’m concerned, you’re just as much of a Grayson as you are a Wayne or a Todd now.”

Jason looks dumb founded.

It makes Dick laugh. “How could I ever be mad when you’re just doing your job?” he asks, and that’s the end of that.

*

Right before Jason’s world ends, there’s quiet.

The Joker leaves the warehouse, the slam of the metal door reverberating for what seems like miles, echoing the thud of the panicking heart in Jason’s chest. Breathing is getting harder with each passing minute, his ribs a cage his lungs are trying to escape from, cracking them like flimsy branches with each gasp of air. He wants—more than anything—to roll over and sleep until help arrives because the world is too painful to be awake in right now. However, there’s things going on—important things, actually—that take precedence.

Sheila Haywood, bleeding out from a gunshot on the ground across from him, red-soaked blonde curls spilling out like a golden waterfall beneath her.

A bomb, counting down to the last few minutes until a fiery death.

Jason _has_ to do something. There’s no one else here to save him.

He steels himself against the pain as he rolls over to push up onto his feet, his whole world twisting on its axis in a wave of nausea. He breathes quick—in, out—trying to regain his bearings before taking a few steps in the direction of the door. Jason’s in no shape to try to carry Sheila out of this warehouse in time to get them both out alive, so his only hope is that someone— _anyone_ really, who isn’t the Joker—will be right outside to help.

A strangled sob falls from cracked lips, somehow louder than his earlier screams. Each wobbly step he takes towards that door is wracked with agony, broken bones grating together, blood dripping and streaking in a macabre mosaic along the cement floor, tears slipping like molten lava across his torn cheeks. The red numbers of the bomb glint along the edges of his periphery like buzzing fireflies, his head a tangled frenzy of racing thoughts and panic, and he still hears the echoes of the Joker’s laughter even if the heinous clown is long gone.

But right now, Jason doesn’t care about any of that. All he cares about is… home.

(He just wants to go _home_.)

Eventually, he slumps to his knees, too tired to keep upright, but that doesn’t stop him from crawling forward. It’s not until he’s practically dragging himself across the cement floor, a trail of blood in his wake, that he realizes just how hurt he might be. _Internal bleeding, external bleeding, broken bones, bruises…_ There’s a plethora of injuries he can’t even catalogue, but the fact of the matter is that _he doesn’t have time to._

The door looms ahead. He’s almost there.

Cold fingers reach for the metal knob, bloody streaks against the shiny silver, as they clasp around it. Jason tugs once, pulls twice, bangs against the door three times as frustration boils over.

The door doesn’t open.

A whine builds in the back of his throat the more he jiggles the door handle, just begging that it will change its mind the more he tries. Hysteria bubbles in the pit of his stomach, making the world swirl with nausea, and tears turn to sobs turn to wails as time ticks on.

The bomb’s red numbers are glowing in the dim warehouse like the beacon of a lighthouse for lost ships. He can only stare at them ticking down while he waits for the storm to hit. It’s only a matter of time before it all comes down around him, and there’s no time for Batman to come and save him. Jason has used up his only miracle in life—and that _was_ Batman.

He’s not allotted anymore.

(There’s only a minute left.)

Suddenly, the door gives out from behind him, and Jason falls across the ground with a grunt. Before his eyes, Nightwing dances in all his glory.

“Dick?” he says, and he knows that they shouldn’t use names in the field but it escapes without thought. Dick was supposed to be off-world, wasn’t he? “What’re you doing—”

“No time to explain,” he murmurs under his breath as he bends down to scoop Robin into his grasp, pulling him tight against his chest as he breaks out into a run to get them far away from the warehouse.

Jason allows a few seconds for shock to take over, to let it sink into his bones and settle in his system, pump through his heart like sludge, thick and heavy. “Wait, wait,” he gasps when his vision clears. “There’s a bomb!”

“That’s why we’re running, Little Wing,” Dick puffs against his ear, warm breath tickling his cheek.

“But Sheila’s still in there!” Jason cries. “We can’t just leave her!”

Heavy breathing fills the space between them as Dick keeps running, trying to put a safe distance between the two of them and the bomb. Jason counts the seconds in his head, already losing track because things are turning fuzzy as the world spins madly around him. He can only tighten his grasp on the front of Dick’s suit, tug on it ever so slightly, and press his forehead into the hollow of his brother’s throat.

“Please,” he pleads, tears dripping down his face, thick and slow like candlewax. “It’s my mom, Dick. _My mom_.”

Dick finally slows to a stop before he bends down and gently places Jason down on the freezing, snow-covered ground. He looks over his shoulder one last time at the ominous warehouse, seeming to study it in silence, before turning back to Jason with fire in his eyes.

“Okay, okay,” he tells him. “I’ll go get her. Don’t move, you hear me? _Don’t move_. B will be here soon. I’ll be right back.”

And then he turns on his heel and runs back into the warehouse.

(Jason doesn’t even have the chance to say goodbye. He doesn’t think he needs to.)

 _Dick said he’d be right back_.

Jason sits in the snow, afraid and in pain, simply staring at the warehouse with baited breath. He starts to shiver, the seconds counting down, when the growl of an engine interrupts his thoughts as Batman crashes upon the scene on the back of his bike. He parks it next to Nightwing’s, already throwing himself off and crossing the snow-packed distance towards Jason.

“Jay, Jason,” he calls out. “Are you okay?”

He kneels down next to him, arms hovering above his shoulders for a second before pulling Jason into a tight embrace. The younger boy whimpers in his hold but clings tightly.

“Dad,” he murmurs.

“Where’s Dick?” Bruce asks, pulling back.

“He’s inside, he’s getting Sheila, _there’s a bom_ —”

And then the world explodes.

*

Jason wakes in the hospital, already clawing at the nasal cannula pressed into his nose and fighting with threadbare sheets and other tubes, until he finally registers Bruce’s face looming above him. He squints up at his father, the rest of the world swimming carelessly behind him, but it doesn’t matter. Bruce has a way of being the focal point of his universe.

“Bruce?” he mumbles, words slurring slightly. “Where ‘re we?”

“Hospital, Jason,” comes Bruce’s soft response. It’s gentle and frail—any wind could break it apart. “We’re at the hospital.”

Jason blinks a few times to clear his vision as he slowly becomes accustomed to the brightness and color. Everything is white—same as every fucking hospital he’s ever been in—but the curtains are drawn close, the distant beeps from monitors muted, soft blues and shadows. His eyes brim with tears, because all the relief hits him at once.

God, he’s just so _thankful_ to be alive.

“Jay, do you remember what happened?” asks Bruce after a short while, trying to let his son become accustomed to consciousness again.

“Ethiopia,” he says, voice hoarse from disuse. He wonders how long he’s been asleep. “There.. Joker and S-Sheila.”

Something in Bruce’s blue eyes cracks. “Yeah,” he says, licking his dry lips as he ponders his next words. “The Joker took you—”

“Where’s Sheila?” Jason interjects. That’s all that matters right now.

The last time he had seen his biological mother was when she’d been drowning in a puddle of blood, the Joker looming over her with his arm outstretched, finger on the trigger. Jason could only tremble on the ground in pain and panic, unable to even tell the metallic glints of the crowbar and gun apart. He’d heard Sheila scream—that’s the most important thing he can remember.

She couldn’t stop screaming.

Bruce presses a shaky hand to the side of his son’s face, thumb stroking his cheekbone in a rhythmic, reassuring motion. “Jason,” he whispers. “She didn’t make it.”

Jason didn’t register his father’s words. Why would he? It was a completely different language. Batman and Robin _saved_ people—it was their fucking job. If Sheila was gone, then that means they failed, and if so, what was the fucking point of everything?

“No, no,” he mumbles under his breath in a rush. “Where’s Sheila?”

Bruce is saying some else, hands up to reassure his son, but Jason can’t hear him. He thinks back to when he sat trembling in the snow, shivering from the cold and pain, and watched Dick run back into that warehouse to rescue Sheila. His brother had _promised_ to save her, and now Bruce is telling him that she didn’t make it anyway?

“Dick promised,” is all Jason can say, voice rising to a plaintive whine. “Where’s Dick?”

And here it is: Bruce breaks.

It’s a slow descent to madness, the crumble of his careful expression, the tears that prick into the corners of his eyes and the way the blood sinks away from his face, just a pale ghost staring back at Jason. Just like Sheila. Just like Dick.

“H-He didn’t make it either, Jason.”

Jason starts to shake his head, fast and frantic. That same hysteria from before, almost killed at the Joker’s hands, comes flooding back and threatens to drown him. “No, no, no.” It’s the only word he knows how to say apparently. “Where’s Dick?”

Bruce, exhausted, climbs into bed with his son and holds him close.

Jason cries.

 _He didn’t get a chance to say goodbye_.

*

In another world, Jason Todd is already buried six feet under when Dick Grayson comes back from an off-world mission. In this one, Jason stands on top of a grave that isn’t his with a weathered Roy Harper, fresh from space, beside him.

“I asked Bruce to give him a safety coffin,” Jason murmurs in the fabric of his hoodie, biting on the red cotton as the bubbling unease threatens to drown him. It hasn’t disappeared in the months since Ethiopia, and he doubts it’ll ever truly abate.

Roy quirks a brow high as he peers at the younger boy over the lid of his take-out cup. “What the fuck is a safety coffin?” he asks because honestly— _what the fuck_. He’s barely been on Earth for three hours, shaking from adrenaline and coffee, numb in the wake of a suffocating grief.

“It’s a coffin with a safety device,” Jason says. “The idea is that people might be buried prematurely, like still alive and everything, and then they’d wake up in a coffin and try to claw their way out. But they’re stuck there and eventually run out of oxygen. End up dying for real then.”

Roy presses his lips into a thin line. “Jason,” he mumbles, voice choked. “You do know that Dick was dead when they put him under, right? I don’t think anyone would’ve made that mistake.”

The sight of Dick’s grave is suddenly too much for Jason to take. He turns to look at the blades of grass that bristle in the wind or the gray clouds that slip past the noonday sun, anywhere else that he doesn’t have to face a world without Dick Grayson in it. There’s a burn that prickles in the corners of his eyes, so he sniffs hard and loud to keep it at bay. He didn’t spare any tears during the funeral and he most certainly won’t let them go with Roy.

“That’s not what I’m afraid of.” Jason sounds ancient then, voice heavy and hoarse. “People come back from the dead all the time. It’s basically fucking _expected_ in our line of work.”

“Yeah, but Dick wasn’t a meta-human and or a… time traveler, or whatever other shit us superheroes get into.” Roy’s grip on his coffee cup tightens, and soon the cardboard is crumbling beneath his fingers. Lukewarm mocha dribbles from the bottom, dripping into the grass in soft plops like teardrops. “Dick Grayson was fucking _human_ , and that’s what made him so special.”

“Special?” Jason nearly cracks a smile at the thought. “If he was ‘so special’, then why the hell is he fucking dead?”

Roy nudges the younger boy with his elbow, hearing a grunt as he impacts aching ribs and immediately sobers. He didn’t mean to hurt Jason, especially when he’s still recovering from the injuries he suffered at the hands of the Joker, but there’s something about the way he speaks about Dick that leaves Roy feeling uneasy. It’s disrespectful, brimming with hatred, but Roy knows that Jason didn’t hate Dick—even when he tried his best. It’s clear to whoever watched the two brothers interact that Jason thought the world of the older boy.

This isn’t hatred. This is grief in its rawest form. Jason just fucking _misses_ his brother.

“Being special doesn’t mean he was invulnerable, Jay.” Roy levers him with a look that speaks volumes. “Anyone can die—that’s the risk he took every time he put on his suit. Dick never believed otherwise.”

“Well fuck him, then.” Jason lowers his head, shoulders hiking up as he tries to hide himself in the collar of his hoodie. His whole body is trembling now—to a point that the whole Earth could be quaking but he wouldn’t notice. Losing Dick was enough to shift his world from its orbit, change its very foundation, so not even a natural disaster could do much more damage. “Who plans on fucking dying?”

“Dick made a lot of plans, kid.” Jason’s frown has Roy leaning forward, trying to get the teen to pay attention to him. What he has to say is _important_ , damn it. “If anything were to ever happen to him, he made sure that the people he loved were taken care of. He had plans for me, plans for you.”

Jason snorts. “He’s a horrible matchmaker.”

Roy’s ears burn something fierce, and he’s back to assaulting Jason, poking the tip of his boots into the back of his knee. “That’s not what I meant, asshole. He just asked me to look out for you if he wasn’t here to do it.”

“I can take care of myself.” Jason gnaws on his bottom lip, already cracked from months of the same treatment, and looks ready to bolt. “I never needed someone to take care of me.”

“Dick thought you did.”

“Yeah, well Dick’s a _dick_.” He scoffs, but it sounds more like a sob. And _god damn it_ …

Once the tears start, there’s no stopping them.

Roy lays a heavy hand on Jason’s shoulder while his tears water the grass on Dick’s grave.

(Two months is not enough time to get over losing someone. You never really do.)

*

Gotham burns in the wake of Nightwing’s death.

Crime rates skyrocket, gang activity expanding across the city, the streets red with blood, and amidst it all, Batman and Robin are nowhere to be found. Rumors spark that they were lost in Ethiopia, that the Joker had finally won, that everyone was doomed. Gotham joins Bludhaven in mourning, its saviors lost to the same darkness they trained to save them from.

Commissioner Gordon leaves the Bat Signal on every night for four months straight but to no avail. The public leaves memorials under graffiti-streaked brick walls, alleyways a desperate plea filled with black and red paint, just begging for sightings of the Bats. The police force is overrun with cases, officers overworked, resignation letters piling up after the last Arkham breakout.

(Gordon has a familiar number in his contacts that he refuses to call. Even with his suspicions, which largely go unproven, he won’t bother a man who just buried a son.)

Gotham tries to move on in huge leaps and small lunges, ataxic steps with no one to smooth the path. For all the hope it lets slip out of its fingers, Batman was never something it expected to lose. However, hope is the only thing that remains for one young boy a few miles outside the bustling city.

Tim Drake sits in the only streak of moonlight amidst the midnight shadows of his bedroom, staring at a worn cardboard box in front of him. It’s full of photo albums carrying years of history that follow Batman and Robin since the young boy could fumble with a camera and a fire escape at the same time. Images of Nightwing are present amidst the bundles of recent years, but even those are few and far between after the first Robin jetted off to Bludhaven since Tim can’t ride the bus that far.

He pulls out a photo album from the bottom of the box, edges worn from the times he’s flipped through it. There’s no doubt that this particular bundle is precious—well-read and well-loved.

The picture he’s looking for sits just beyond the thick cover: a family portrait taken at a circus when Tim was three, his parents standing beside a family of acrobats with thin smiles stretched across their faces. Tim himself sits on the knee of the child acrobat, little arms looped around the nine-year-old’s neck, smile wide with glee as the boy whispers in his ear, “ _I’ll do my special flip for you.”_

The last time Tim saw that young boy, Dick Grayson, only twenty years, was being lowered into a grave in a wood-stained casket, the Wayne family standing under black umbrellas as they watched the ground swallow one of their own. Tim had watched from the summit of a hill across the way, too jittery and nervous to approach and saw his goodbyes. There’s little to say when the people who mean the world to you don’t even know your name.

It wasn’t his place. It still isn’t.

But now Gotham is falling apart, the very home Batman had built collapsing under his absence. Tim has haunted the same alleyways and rooftops the Bats have frequented every night for as long as he can remember, and there’s been no sign of Batman and Robin since Nightwing’s death. The screams, tears, and blood stains have become permanent fixtures in the city streets.

Something must be done.

With a shaky finger, Tim traces the ghost of a smile on nine-year-old Dick Grayson’s face , fingernail digging into the glossy protective cover over the photograph.

 _You didn’t die for everything to go to shit_ , Tim tells him. _I’ll make Bruce see that. I promise._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You can’t give up on Gotham! People are dying, and no one’s safe. Batman needs to come back.”
> 
> “This isn’t something for you to worry about.” Bruce’s frown doesn’t waver, and Tim doesn’t back down. “If and when Batman comes back, that’s on me. You need to go home, and forget that any of this ever happened. And you’re going to give me any record you kept of me and Robin, because—”
> 
> “Dick would be so disappointed in you.” There’s silence that lingers, thick and heavy, as the incredulity hits him as he processes what Tim said.

The break isn’t planned. It’s one of those things that just… _happens_.

At first, it’s because everything else is too overwhelming, and Bruce doesn’t have the back-up he’d need in this specific state of mind. Even then, that’s more of an excuse. The truth of the matter is that Batman is needed, but not as much as Bruce Wayne. He’s a father first and foremost, a vigilante second.

It certainly didn’t start that way. Bruce never signed up to be a parent. Despite what the media may say, he never intended for fatherhood to be written into the resume of his lifetime. If people were to ever look at the man that is Bruce Wayne, the only things meant to come to mind are playboy, polo champ, and philanthropist.

 _Father_ never belonged. He’d never even fathomed it.

Until a breezy May evening, when death took John and Mary Grayson with snapped wires and gravity, a spark flared in Bruce’s chest and never dimmed, only growing warmer and brighter in the weeks that followed. Richard Grayson— _Dick—_ was a whirlwind of chaos and change, taken in because Bruce knew what ghostly smiles and haunted eyes could turn into, and he didn’t want this young boy to become him.

(Perhaps the paternal instinct was always there, even if Bruce would never admit to it.)

It’s after Zucco was arrested for murder and Robin joined Batman on patrol through the Gotham nights that Bruce began to realize what happened. Between crime and vigilantism, nightmares and guardianship, he roped himself into fatherhood, and he found that the thought scared him more than he thought it would.

Now, Bruce can’t be sure what he was exactly scared of: doing the job or failing at it. Either way, at the ripe age of twenty-four, holding a trembling eight-year-old Dick Grayson to his chest after witnessing his parents fall to their deaths, he made a lifelong commitment to this little boy that he could never back out of. It’s a contract sealed for the next ten years, a duty that carries more weight than the Dark Knight, and it was _terrifying_.

Dick asking to be _partners_ was the only saving grace. _Partner_ is not _parent_ , even if you can’t spell one without the other.

Once the guardianship papers went through and Dick was officially his ward, Alfred would tell him days later, continued to tell him weeks after, even reminds him now in the subsequent years after Jason has joined their family: “He’s yours, Master Bruce. Whether you like it or not, he will look up to you, even if you are just his partner. You need to be _more_.”

Bruce simply nodded and tried to drown himself in a pot of coffee. It’s true that he could be a friend, he could be a partner, but Bruce Wayne was not a father.

(In a few years, he would wish for more but was too afraid to ask. Standing over Dick’s grave, he certainly still regrets it.)

The years passed by in huge leaps and lunges, in great falls and spirals, in hard stops and pivots. Dick grew older and wiser, grew taller and fills out, grows from child to man—and Bruce just watched it all happen. Sixteen brought independence and Nightwing, and Jason as the new Robin following shortly in his shadow with a tire iron on a dark and stormy night.

Their family was never the same, and Bruce had to accept the fact that he was always destined to be a father. And now he would never have it any other way.

But standing over Dick’s grave… He sort of wishes he could.

Perhaps it would spare this pain—the burning agony that sparks every time he feels like he might find even an iota of peace. But then he sees the way Jason lurks around, spends hours curled up in the sofa in the library and pretends that he doesn’t spend his nights crying.

Bruce may have lost one son, but he still has another to take care of. His own pity and guilt can wait, Batman can take a breather. He needs to be Jason’s father right now.

So the break just happens.

….And then keeps happening.

(…And just never stops.)

*

A morning in November comes in with frozen sleet, the lingering of fog amidst the pine-needled drive of Wayne manor, and the pounding footsteps of one Jason Todd against the brick-lay walkway.

“B, holy _fuck!_ ” he calls out, bursting through the back door after his morning jog. He slides into the kitchen where Bruce and Alfred are huddled around the island, both picking at the remains of their omelet and casting warning glances at his language upon entry. “You’ve gotta see this.”

There’s a crinkle of plastic and paper as he shoves the daily newspaper into his father’s hands, damp and wrinkled from sitting outside the front gate in the miserable weather. Bruce presses his lips into a thin line as he reads the major headline: **BATBOY FLIES HIGH IN GOTHAM**. The picture underneath is a simple horizon shot where a figure in black can be seen running across a rooftop, a cape whipping behind them in the wind, and small bat ears perched atop their hood.

From just the grainy picture some citizen managed to snap, Bruce can’t tell much about the masquerader, but he can see where they clearly drew their inspiration. A small part of him wails because this person looks small—the same way Dick used to be when he first donned the Robin tights, the same way Jason was when Bruce carried him away from the wreckage of Ethiopia, the same way that makes his heart ache at the thought of another child being in harm’s way.

He twists around to face his son, brow quirked high in confusion. “You weren’t out last night, were you?”

“Why the fuck would you even ask that?” Jason snaps with a bitter heat, and Bruce tries not to be burned in its wake. He knows it’s a stupid question, remembers Jason’s insistence to hang up the cape following Ethiopia and Dick’s death, but there’s very few others who might be brave enough to don Batman’s cowl in his absence.

“Jay, I’m just—”

“Whatever, old man.” His anger slips away, soothed by a rising tide. “I’ve been telling you to go back out there for _months_ , and now someone’s stealing your thunder.” Jason climbs onto a barstool next to Alfred, gratefully accepting the orange the older man offers to him, and starts to chug the last dredges from his water bottle after his run.

He doesn’t say anything else, already knowing that he’s stabbed Bruce with enough force to leave him bedridden for days to come. Those were fighting words, weapons of certain death, as painful as he could possibly make them. While Bruce accepted Jason’s resignation as Robin with a bit of somber happiness, Jason never fully accepted Bruce’s resignation as Batman.

“I’m gonna have to do something about this, aren’t I?” Bruce says more to himself, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. He can already feel the headache setting in.

“What other options are there?” Alfred says over the rim of his glass, eyes flickering across the newspaper as he reads the story. “It appears that Gotham thinks that the Batman is dead, and this is his son.”

Bruce groans and drops his head in his hands. Jason reaches across the table and pats his father’s shoulder. “Congratulations, Pops. It’s a boy.”

Bruce wordlessly smacks his hands away and pouts, as this is correctly the proper grown-up thing to do.

He has work to do.

*

Realistically, Tim knows he’s stupid. He may be the smartest person in the room, but he’s often times quite stupid about it.

Dressing up as a miniature Batman and taking to the streets of Gotham probably wasn’t the best plan he’s ever concocted. Especially when it resulted in an injury from a stray gunshot that grazed him because jumping into the middle of a gang fight without training was his best way to take the suit for a test-drive.

Listen, he can’t articulate how stupid even _he_ thinks he is, but the fact of the matter is that someone has to do something about Gotham.

His city—the same city the Bats fought tirelessly to protect—is falling apart, crumbling into shambles. There’s nearly nothing recognizable on any street corner, destruction and misfortune hanging overhead like a heavy raincloud. There’s no escaping it when you look between the lines, despite what the media and police force want civilians to think. If someone didn’t jump into the fray and try to _fix_ things… eventually there might be nothing left to save.

So Tim jumped in. He put together a hodge-podge of black garments and an old Halloween mask, a patchwork of potential to give anyone who saw him on the Gotham rooftops _hope_. Because at the end of the day, Batman gives this city hope—that’s what he’s always stood for.

But now that Batman has lost his own, someone else has to step forward and be a beacon.

Tim sits on the lip of the porcelain bathtub, blood dripping in stark plops against the bright white of the bathroom tiles. The wound isn’t deep, no bullet or fragments to dig tirelessly through with his mother’s tweezers, but he still can’t seem to stop the bleeding. It rolls down his arm like teardrops, thick and red, and he can only helplessly cup his hand under his elbow to catch them. His shoulder twinges pitifully when he twists just the wrong way.

…Perhaps this wound is a _little_ bit more than a graze, after all.

Blood is collapsing in a small puddle below him, and Tim lets out of a low moan as he ducks his head down, thoughts running wild. He didn’t prepare a first aid kit for this stupid idea. His home is not idiot-proof.

“Come on, Tim,” he says to himself, voice reverberating off of the bare bathroom walls. “What would Dick Grayson do?”

Dick Grayson would probably not get shot—that’s step one. Going to Batman—going to _Bruce Wayne_ —would be the next logical option, but Tim never learned the meaning of that word. So instead he consults his numerous facts and figures of everything that pertains to Bruce Wayne as Batman, and settles on a medical clinic tucked away in the ramshackle heart of Gotham.

He goes to stand up, reaching for the gauze on the bathroom counter, only for the world to begin to spin. Tim tightens his grip on the edge of the tub and tries not to pass out.

Perhaps Leslie Thompkins can work a miracle.

*

The phone rings, and rings, and _rings_.

Bruce leans back in the chair in his study, staring at his private line with tired exasperation. There’s only a few who have his personal number, and no one has called it in the last few months other than to offer weak platitudes of Dick’s passing. He swallows back a thick lump that seems to come on every time he thinks about his deceased son, and settles in for what’s undoubtedly going to be a long, pointless conversation.

“Bruce,” he answers gruffly, gaze centered on the information he’s compiled about… the _Batboy_ who’s been haunting the Gotham streets for the last week.

“I thought, after Dick, you might have gotten smart and stopped doing _this_.” Leslie’s voice echoes over the line, tired and worn in a way he’s only heard after one of his kids gets hurt. It takes him a while to register what she’s saying, but by the time he does, she’s already continuing. “But instead I have to stitch up another gunshot because you don’t know how to encourage sensible first-aid.”

Bruce rubs the furrow between his brow, pinches the bridge of his nose in the wake of an oncoming migraine. “Leslie, I can honestly say that I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He doesn’t address the comment about Dick. He lets himself be a waterfall and watches the words flow over the rocks. They hurt less that way.

There’s silence before he hears Leslie’s tinny voice say, “He calls himself Batboy?”

Bruce nearly drops the phone. “You found him?”

“Oh, so you _do_ know him after all.”

Bruce’s grip on the phone tightens incrementally. He’d spent the last few days trying to track down any clear about this so-called Batboy who’s taken to the streets—who he is, where he goes—anything that could help him get this stupid kid home safe. He never expected Leslie Thompkins to be his saving grace.

“Where is he?” he asks urgently, pushing himself to his feet and searching for his keys. “Is he okay?”

“Still at the clinic,” Leslie tells him. “Listen, Bruce, I’m not going to do this again. If you want to keep encouraging this, then I’m—”

“He’s not one of mine,” he presses, voice thick. He tries to swallow back the emotion that comes with the brunt of memories of Dick, Robin, and son. “He made the papers, and I’ve been trying to find him before he got hurt.”

Leslie snorts. “Guess you missed your chance.”

She hangs up with a click, already expecting him to be halfway across the city by now. But her last words make Bruce stop, a stammering halt that jars his cold, damp bones after months under the tremulous waters of grief.

 _Guess you missed your chance_ , the words ring through his head. _Guess you missed your chance to protect this kid. Like you missed your chance to protect your kids in Ethiopia. Like you missed your chance saving Dick from being blown up and buried_.

There’s a pause, the span of a single heartbeat, before Bruce whirls around and punches his hand clean through the wall of his study. The drywall crumbles like a warehouse in Ethiopia as he draws his arm back, heedless of the blossoming bruises and welling blood, and wrenches the door open and heads to the garage.

He has another kid that he actually _might_ still be able to save.

*

Bruce has obviously never met Tim Drake though.

He dons the cowl for the first time in months—since Ethiopia, since the helicopter from the last time he saw the Joker alive, since the last meeting he signed off for the Justice League—and enters Leslie’s clinic from the side entrance. It’s still mid-morning in Gotham, so he makes sure to stick to the shadows of the alley and hides his footsteps in the jumbling roar of city traffic and construction projects.

It feels like a resurrection—to walk these paths with cowl and cape. The truth of the matter is that Batman died in the warehouse with Dick, as he should’ve. Because what good was the hero if he couldn’t save his son?

He slips into the clinic, ambles the familiar halls to the back room. He doesn’t hear the sounds of chattering patients or the clattering keys from the receptionist, so he figures that Leslie must have closed down the clinic for the morning. The doctor greets him in one of the back medical rooms and gestures inside. The sight that greets him makes him freeze.

“You’re Batman,” comes the cracking voice of a thirteen-year-old boy, sprawled across the medical table in Leslie’s back room. His arm and shoulder are covered in gauze, dark blue eyes swimming with the haze of good narcotics.

Bruce can’t stop the little gasp of awe that falls from his lips under the cowl. Because this boy immediately looks like Dick Grayson at thirteen, all dark hair and blue eyes, that hopeful smile on his face like Batman could do anything.

“You’re Tim Drake,” he says instead, trying to keep the quake from his words. He’ll go home eventually, curl up on his bed, and pretend that today never happened later. Right now, he has to deal with a boy who thinks himself a hero in a city that would sooner kill him.

“Oh,” the boy— _Tim_ —says, a small smile stretched across his face. “We’re using real names, okay. You’re Bruce Wayne then.”

Bruce’s heart stutters to an abrupt halt in his chest. “Excuse me?” he chokes out, not at all prepared for those words to leave this kid’s mouth.

Tim is injured, but he looks wide awake suddenly. “I already know who you are—that’s beside the point—but my plan worked!”

“Your plan?”

“To get your attention,” Tim says, like that explains everything. “It was either I protect Gotham, or you’ll come out of hiding and do it. Gotham needs Batman—needs someone, anyone—and no one was stepping up to do it, you know? So I thought that I’d—”

“Put on a mask and try to be Batman?” Leslie’s voice cuts through the boiling tension in the room. “Do you know how stupid that was? You could have been killed. In fact, you’re lucky you weren’t.”

“I knew what I was doing,” Tim insists, leaning forward. A grimace flashes across his face, his right hand jerking towards his left shoulder in a desperate attempt to alleviate the pain, but he musters on. He doesn’t let a gunshot slow him down.

In a way, Bruce is impressed. It’s heartbreakingly like Jason and Dick.

“Albeit things didn’t go the way I wanted them too,” Tim continues, and Bruce is still reeling from the reveal of his identity. “But I had to do something. I couldn’t just walk to your house and be like, ‘Hey, Mr. Wayne, I now you’re Batman, and I thought you should know Gotham’s going to shit without you.’ You would’ve closed the door in my face.”

“How do you know who I am?” Bruce says conversationally, pushing the cowl back with effort. He doesn’t feel like indulging the kid in front of him, but there’s so much more to the story that he’s missing that it’s imperative they connect pieces where they can.

“That’s not the most important thing to talk about right now.”

“I think it is.”

Tim sighs to himself and runs a hand through his tousled dark hair. “I’ve known who you were since I was nine. I’ve had a vested interest in Batman and Robin for a long time. It was pretty easy to connect the dots when I knew where to look.”

“Since you were nine?” Bruce asks, making a distinct effort not to collapse where he stands. He grips onto the back of a chair and sits down, needing time to process everything.

“Dick Grayson is… _was_ the only person on Earth who could do a quadruple somersault.” The sound of his son’s name falling from Tim’s lips makes Bruce jump. He didn’t expect to deal with a teenage vigilante with the ghost of Robin’s smile today. “I saw Robin do it a couple years ago, and I’ve known since then.”

A beat of silence and then, “Also, I live next door, and the Batmobile is pretty loud.”

Something cracks in his chest, the rumble of a long-dead engine trying to sputter back to life. The laugh turns over, a rough and guttural chuckle that spills over before he has a chance to hold it back. “What… is your plan exactly, Tim?”

The boy takes a steadying breath, and Bruce watches with captive glee the slow rise and fall of his chest because _he hadn’t lost this kid yet_. “Gotham is falling apart. It needs Batman.”

“I’m just taking a little break right now. I’ve got more important things to do.” Bruce presses because he gets this enough from Jason and Alfred. He doesn’t need a stranger to come in and tell him what he already knows.

“I know.” Tim’s eyes gleam like a wild fire, and Bruce expects to find himself singed when the bright gaze settles on him. “I know you just lost Dick, and that Jason needs you. But… Gotham needs you too. And more people are going to die if you don’t come back—”

“There isn’t a conversation for here,” Bruce tells him. “We’re going to finish up here, and I’m taking you home.”

“Not until you agree to come back.” Tim stands his ground, slips off the table so that he’s on his feet. “I didn’t do all this just for you to treat me like a kid. You need to listen to me.”

“I am the adult here, and we’re going home, Tim.”

“You can’t give up on Gotham! People are dying, and no one’s safe. Batman _needs_ to come back.”

“This isn’t something for you to worry about.” Bruce’s frown doesn’t waver, and Tim doesn’t back down. “If and when Batman comes back, that’s on me. You need to go home, and forget that any of this ever happened. And you’re going to give me any record you kept of me and Robin, because—”

“Dick would be so disappointed in you.” There’s silence that lingers, thick and heavy, as the incredulity hits him as he processes what Tim said.

It’s the same words he thinks to himself in the throes of a nightmare, caught between the dusty gasps of Ethiopia and the bloodied smile on Dick’s cold face. Bruce dreams of the black Nightwing mask, unseeing blue eyes looking into his very soul, and blaming him for Gotham burning, for Jason almost dying, for Dick’s sacrifice.

 _I’m so disappointed in you_ , Dick tells him in the darkness, pale cracked lips pulled thin like the Joker’s smile. _It’s all your fault._

For a long time, in the backroom of Dr. Thompkins’s clinic, no one says a word. Tim is in pain and shaking, the trauma of the last few days finally catching up to him. Leslie busies herself with cleaning up her medical supplies, throwing needles into the sharps bucket and putting blood-stained sheets in the biohazard trash. Bruce, on the other hand, is a stone cold statute where nothing can break him.

“Tim Drake,” he finally says, the words halting and cool. “I’m taking you home.”

(Bruce has always known that Dick would be disappointed if he thought that he was the reason for Batman leaving Gotham defenseless. He knows that if it were the other way around—if Bruce was the one who died—Dick would’ve done the same thing that little Tim Drake did, and taken up the cowl of Batman in a world where no one else could possibly step up to carry that mantle.

In another world, Tim Drake walks up to the Wayne Mansion, a scrapbook of pictures of Batman and Robin under his arm, and whispers the same words on Bruce’s doorstep. In this world, Bruce just gets the scrapbook in the mail with a letter that just says: _Please_. He ignores the pleas either way because he has already lost one kid, and he doesn’t see the point in losing another.

In both worlds, Two-Face arrives on the scene three weeks later and threatens the peace and lives of everyone in Gotham. Bruce dons the cowl for the first time since Ethiopia for the actual reason it was originally created and goes to save his city. In the end, Tim slips a mask on and goes to save his hero.

In neither world is Tim looking to replace Dick or Jason, but in this one, Bruce ends up being the only one in his corner about taking up the mantle of Robin. There’s no Dick to watch his back, an Alfred who doesn’t understand, and a fiery Jason who isn’t prepared to fully let go.

What really matters is that, in any world, losing a son hurts, and the Wayne family is barely coping. But Tim Drake, in any world, always has something to say about it.)

*

The first time Tim Drake truly, actually meets Jason Todd, the older boy punches him in the face.

Tim’s hands fly to cup his cheek, clenching his jaw tight in both pain and shock. Honestly, if he wanted to impress Bruce—the Batman himself—not being able to dodge or duck is not adding to his resume _at all_.

“Can I fucking help you?” Tim bites out, still reeling from the aggressive introduction. His eyes blur with unshed tears, the pain in his face fading to a dull ache, but he isn’t about to cry. Instead, he’s getting ready to scream.

“You’re an idiot.” Jason shakes his hand out, wiggling his fingers to get feeling back into a limb not used to throwing punches bare. It probably doesn’t help that he hasn’t touched any type of combat or self-defense training since Ethiopia. “Just thought I’d get that point across first, so we’re not misunderstanding each other.”

“Dually noted, I guess,” mumbles Tim, leveling Jason with a keen stare. He doesn’t look angry, but if there’s one thing that Tim is sure of after years of following Batman and Robin, there’s never any tells for when they’ll jump into action—they just do.

“Now that we’ve officially met—” Jason jabs his index finger in the center of Tim’s chest. “— _Leave_.”

“Excuse me?”

“You have no reason to be here,” Jason says simply as Tim’s mind races to process his words. His eyes are burning, something dark and heavy, as if the years of grief have irrevocably taken their toll on his soul. Tim recognizes the same look in Bruce when they met in Leslie’s clinic.

This is what the mask does to you, Tim supposes.

“Bruce invited me. He’s training me.” His answer just makes Jason laugh bitterly and shake his head.

“It’s a fucking suicide mission, kid,” Jason interjects. He clenches his hands into a white-knuckled grip, and Tim can see the minute tremors that speak of barely-held back turmoil. “So go home, back to your little rich life with your perfect parents and your perfect house, and forget about this stupid thing.”

“I _want_ to be here—”

“You’re thirteen.” Tim blinks, honestly surprised that Jason knows this. “I’m not gonna be responsible for a kid dying because he wants to play at being a hero, and I’m certainly not going to let you be another burden to Bruce’s conscience. Trust me, there’s already enough we’re guilty for, and you’re not gonna be another thing.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Tim presses, trying to get his point across. He’d never imagined that Jason would be so adamant about him becoming Robin, but alas, this is the direction that events are taking them. But, as such with everything else, this is something he prepared for. “If I get trained, then there’s less chance of anything happening to me out _there_.”

“What the fuck do you care about what happens out there?” Jason throws his hands up in exasperation, a mocking expression of awe stretched across face. “You’re a fucking _Drake_. Why would someone in the top 1% care about what happens to the rest of Gotham? You think this counts towards the charity and donations your parents can write off on tax money?”

Fury simmers under the surface as Tim glares at the older boy. “That’s not what this at all. I care about what happens to this city. Gotham is my home too.”

“You have never seen what Gotham really is.” Jason is almost yelling, and Tim wouldn’t be surprised if he takes another swing. “You’ve spent your whole life in some gilded castle just watching Batman and Robin do some cool tricks and acrobatics, and now you’re deciding you want to join in because it looks fun.”

“No—”

“News flash, Drake,” Jason cuts him off. “I’ve seen your kind. I go to school with your kind. I’ve spent the last five years trying to play pretend and placate your kind. You can’t handle this life.”

“You mean like you couldn’t?” Tim’s voice is hard, full of diamonds that could shred flesh and bone.

There’s a short beat of silence before Jason asks, “Excuse me?”

“You’re the one who _left_.” Frigid ice sinks to pit of their stomachs as both level each other with the coldest glare they can. “I wouldn’t be here if you were still Robin and hadn’t run away after things got hard.”

“That’s what you think happened?” Jason is surprisingly calm. It scares Tim. “That I left because things got a little difficult?”

Tim takes a deep breath, trying to soothe his frenzied heart, which beats against the cage of his ribs like a wild animal. “That’s not what I meant—”

“My brother died,” Jason says, and Tim swallows back a lump of regret. _He didn’t mean this_. “Dick died trying to save me. I spent weeks in the hospital. The doctors said I probably wouldn’t wake up because of my brain injury, and there was a time Bruce thought he’d lose both of his sons instead of just one.”

“I’m sorry—”

“Bruce had to bury a kid either way,” Jason continues, his voice monotonic, like he’s perusing an article in the Sunday paper over breakfast. “Alfred had to pack up Dick’s apartment and plan his funeral because me and Bruce were pretty much out of commission for a while. You know how it is, nearly dying and stuff. It’s a lot to deal with, but I’m sure you know all about it if you’re planning to be Robin. Because I’m sure losing a goldfish when you’re nine is pretty similar.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Tim says in a rush because he’s pretty sure antagonizing Jason about his choices is most definitely _not_ the way to respect Dick’s memory. “But Gotham needs Batman, and Batman needs a Robin. I never thought of becoming Robin, but Bruce offered to train me, and I know I can do it.”

“Well I don’t,” Jason tilts his head, studying Tim for a few seconds. “You’re nothing, and that’s not going to change even if Bruce teaches you how to throw a few punches.”

“It doesn’t matter, because someone has to try. Batman _has_ to have a Robin.”

“Where is that written in stone? There’s no more need for there to be a Robin—”

“—Than there is for a Batman?” Tim continues, a brow quirked high as he presses his point forward. “You know that Gotham needs him. But everything’s changed since Dick died and you left. With Nightwing and Robin gone, Batman lost his hope, and Gotham is falling apart. Batman doesn’t do well with being alone, Jason, you know that. Bruce has you, but he doesn’t have you _out there_. He needs someone.”

The silence stretches out for a moment, an eternity where neither of them are willing to move as they press forward incrementally. Jason seems speechless, standing there in worn tennis shoes and a too-big blue hoodie that’s most certainly Dick’s, looking way too young for Tim to comprehend. Even though following Batman and Robin showed Tim their grit and fire, he never realized just how young and vulnerable they’d look without the masks.

Jason looks like a boy trapped in Ethiopia, just waiting for his big brother and father to save him. Likewise, Tim feels like someone hellbent on protecting everything he cares about, a patchwork Batman of his own making, even if it means hurting his heroes and going against their wishes.

Someone has to stand up for Gotham. It’s what Dick would have wanted.

(And Jason knows it.)

Finally, Jason relents—just a little. “You’re never going to be Robin, you know.”

“I can try.”

“No, you don’t get it,” Jason tells him in a biting tone. “You can try all you want, but you’ll never wear the mask. I tried for three years, and I could never do it justice. No one can. Dick Grayson was the only one fit to be Robin.”

Tim clasps his hands into white-knuckled fists at his side, nails digging into the heels of his palm, and simply repeats, “Batman needs a Robin.”

Jason shakes his head. “Robin died in a warehouse in Ethiopia. Quit while you’re ahead, kid.”

Tim wants to punch him now, but he can’t. His mother raised a gentleman even if Bruce is teaching him how to be a constipated asshole. “I don’t you’re your blessing or your approval,” Tim says instead. “But I’m going to be here, and I’m going to train to be Robin, so just… get used to it.”

Jason doesn’t say a word, just turning on his heel and leaving.

Tim tries to be okay with this outcome.

(In another world, it’s just Tim and Bruce for some time, trying to find a new normal in the wake of Jason’s death and Dick’s absence. But they make it happen because both believe in the world they’re fighting for, and eventually, they learn how to be a family.

Sometime later though, Jason climbs out of his grave and tries to kill Tim.

It seems like, in any world, the two are destined to be at odds with one another.)

*

The world does not know how Nightwing died—only that it happened, and that the Joker did it. It’s one thing the deranged clown manages to broadcast to anyone willing to listen: before Batman nearly kills him and his helicopter crashes into the ocean, before Bruce has a chance to turn in the cowl, before Jason even gets out of the hospital.

Imagine, bruised and broken in ways no one should ever be, and hearing the news crackle across the tinny speaker in his room as Jason waits for his father to come back after dashing out of the hospital room in a frenzied rush without any words of explanation. _Nightwing is dead, and I killed him!_

The rumors spread and spill into every crevice of the world, and the public is just left to wonder what happened. Some theories are more grotesque and morbid than even Jason could imagine, while some are more tame than he could ever wish. Bruce tries his best to keep Jason away from any of them, but the teenager still catches hushed secrets as a by-line on the news or a footnote in articles.

It doesn’t matter either way because Jason knows the truth.

Here’s the facts:

Dick Grayson died a heroically in the line of duty.

Jason Todd is the one who killed him.

Nothing Jason will ever do—whether it be with a mask or without—can ever fix this. It’s a debt he will spent the rest of his life repaying, through blood and tears, looking for a way to make his brother feel like Jason was someone who deserved his sacrifice.

He will dedicate his life to making sure that Tim Drake never ends up like him or Dick Grayson, even if it means making sure that the stupid kid never becomes Robin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this not proofread. i'm sorry in advance.


End file.
